Abstract:The satellite data from CALIPSO(Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations) were used to illustrate the vertical distribution of dust aerosols in Beijing caused by a sandstorm via Xinjiang, Gansu, Inner Mongolia and surrounding areas during March 8 to 11, 2013. Moreover, the optical properties parameters like backscatter coefficient, depolarization ratio and color ratio were also studied. Results show that during the dust process in Beijing area, the depolarization ratio of aerosol was between 0.1-0.4, color ratio was above 0.3, and the aerosol distributed at height from less than 3 km to 4 km during March 10-11. Furthermore, the HYSPLIT(Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory) model and NAAPS aerosol model were adopted to simulate the dust source and transmission, which shows that the sand originated from South Xinjiang basin and the midwest of Inner Mongolia, and influenced Gansu, middle and western Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, northern Shanxi, northwesern Hebei, Beijing and other regions. Finally, the two-wavelength inversion algorithm was used to retrieve the aerosol optical thickness in Beijing under dust weather in March 10 and 11. They were 0.334 and 0.621, respectively.